Ep: 454 | Screw Worms Explained

On this episode we’re joined by Macy Ledbetter, a well-informed top flight biologist in Texas who’s monitoring the New World Screw Worm situation in Texas with maximum urgency. It’s a red hot topic in South Texas and many southern gamekeepers are paying attention to the outbreak. The screw worm and it’s near eradication is a captivating story and tribute to science. The fact that it has fought its way back has ranchers/hunters/gamekeepers concerned, and for good reason. Macy does an eloquent job explaining it all. WE salute the agencies that are fighting around the clock to protect the livestock and wildlife that could be effected. Even if you’re not close to Texas, this is a story everyone needs to know about. 

Listen, Learn and Enjoy.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:19

And of course, what you learned, but I'm going to take it.

SPEAKER_00 0:26

We're live in three, two, one. Oh my gosh.

SPEAKER_06 0:29

Let me talk about something we don't know anything about. It's a hot topic in the national news.

SPEAKER_07 0:35

Uh big one.

SPEAKER_06 0:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_07 0:37

It's like we used to get to talk about those kinds of things. Well no. You don't you don't have to finish spelling it on Google, just a couple of letters, and it comes up with all kinds of stuff. Right. It's got uh and it's very apocalyptic sounding. Be honest with you.

SPEAKER_06 0:52

No, I don't want one. No, no, we don't. We don't.

SPEAKER_03 0:56

Let me get our guest introduced. I'm I'm really excited to introduce this guy. He's uh Land, he has done a lot of different stuff. He's been around a long time with Texas Parks and Wildlife. He's a consultant, he's doing flights helicopter surveys, he catches mountain lines and wrangles collars on them. He's incredible. We need to go hang out with this guy. We've got Mr. Macy Ledbetter. All right.

unknown 1:21

Look at that.

SPEAKER_06 1:22

All right, guys.

SPEAKER_03 1:22

Thank you for having me. I appreciate you being here.

SPEAKER_06 1:24

Yes, sir.

SPEAKER_03 1:25

Likewise. Wrangle wearing a collar onto a mountain line.

SPEAKER_04 1:29

You make it sound like it's a WWE event.

SPEAKER_07 1:31

It's not quite that. That's Bobby Farrier.

SPEAKER_06 1:34

He tends to do that.

SPEAKER_07 1:35

He's going to drama into everything.

SPEAKER_06 1:38

Never let the truth get in the way of a good story.

SPEAKER_04 1:41

We're not bulldogging them and wrestling them to the ground. I mean, that's a great story. I love it, but it's not quite quite accurate.

SPEAKER_03 1:47

So you shot it with some kind of tranquilizer dart and a trap, I guess?

SPEAKER_04 1:52

No, that's exactly what it is. So we either use a foothold trap, you know, kind of a rubber-coated foothold trap, or we use dogs and they they run them up a tree and they tree them. And then we have either a dart gun or what they call a push pole. And so we jab them in the in the rear. And uh that that's the fun part. Now, let me let me explain that. So the cat's up a tree, and of course he's very excited. Dogs are barking, it's so loud you can't, it's so loud you can't hardly breathe, you know. And so you you affix that push pole with a syringe and you jab that mountain line in the butt, and that that really makes him, you know, the next level of snapshots. Yeah, I was gonna say then we we put down the pole real quick, and we have a parachute, and it's about 10 foot by 10 foot, maybe 10 foot by 12 foot, and all four of you grab a corner, and you have to catch this drunk mountain lion when he falls out of the tree. So he's you know, he he he's getting up there and he's trying to hang on, and he's not trying to, you know, he he he's the the the sedative is taking effect, you know, he's really trying to hang on. And when he finally gets drunk enough, he really releases his grip. Well, we have to catch him because we don't want him to get the ground and hurt himself, right? And so while he's getting drunk, uh we're we're tying up the dogs because we don't want the dogs to get him when he falls out. So we have this you know 10-foot, 10 by 12 foot parachute, and we have to pull it out, and everybody gets on the corner, and you're underneath the mountain line, and you're gonna catch him as he comes out of the tree. That sounds like drama to me.

SPEAKER_07 3:25

I'm back on the drama side now.

SPEAKER_04 3:27

Yeah, yeah, that that is pretty exciting. So that's uh, you know, to catch a mountain line as he flies out of a tree. That that's pretty exciting, I'm not gonna lie to you.

SPEAKER_03 3:35

No doubt. Well, hopefully that sedative is kicked in enough to make him where he's not too. It really is. Yeah. When they go to the process of sedating a cat, isn't it a lot more difficult to do a cat than most animals?

SPEAKER_04 3:51

Yes. Yes, especially when they're in that state of excitement. You know, they're adrenaline, they've been running, they've, you know, they're they're really fearing, you know, so so everything's amped up. Everything's ramped up. And so we're still trying to base the dosage on body weight. So we're looking at a cat up in a tree, and he's trying not to be seen, right? And so we're we've got to get pretty close to his body weight. Um, and so we can dose it properly, because what you don't want to do is underdose him to where you know he he's mellow, but he's not gonna come out of the tree. That's what you don't want to do, because then you have to redose him, and that that creates another set of problems. So dosage is real real uh real important to get it right the first time. But yeah, it's probably uh I want to say, guys, a 25-minute process from the time you jab him, from the time you catch him out of the tree, you're probably talking 30 minutes, 25, 30 minutes. And then we all have a towel over our shoulder. So as soon as that cat goes into the parachute, we all cover his face and his mouth. Because again, if if he's a little bit uh aware, he's gonna try to lash out. So if you put a towel in his mouth, he's gonna grab a mouthful of towel instead of a mouthful of arm. So we all have towels over our shoulders and we're literally, you know, sticking a towel in his mouth. And what once we get a towel in his mouth, then pretty safe. So yeah, not a bulldog, but a towel.

SPEAKER_03 5:18

We need to send Richie out there. I was thinking the exact same thing. Yeah. I'd love to shoot you with one of those tranquilizer guns or something.

SPEAKER_06 5:24

It would be let me tell you what, if you want to work on it, if you shoot me and I've got 25 minutes to get to you, you're gonna regret that.

SPEAKER_07 5:30

You're gonna be in trouble. Yeah, you're gonna regret that.

SPEAKER_06 5:33

It's gonna be 20 minutes of torture, and then I'm probably going down.

SPEAKER_07 5:36

I'd love to I'd love to film it and have the rights to it, though. Don't don't shoot me today.

SPEAKER_03 5:42

Okay. I I gotta ask, and it's the most obvious question, Landon. You know what I'm fixing to ask. Yeah. Then do it. Are you related to the lead butters in South, Mrs. Tiffany?

SPEAKER_04 5:56

I so badly want to say yes. But but to my knowledge, I'm not. All of my lead butters came from Tennessee. So maybe we are down. Yeah. I I want to say Eugene and Marcel.

SPEAKER_07 6:14

I love Marcel. He's a great one.

SPEAKER_04 6:16

Yeah, Eugene and Marcel. I just want to so much say yes, but but honestly, I'm gonna have to say I don't think so.

SPEAKER_02 6:23

It's definitely our people. Uh no doubt about it. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 6:26

Well, good. Well, look, uh so Macy, well, we're here to talk about this new world screw worm. And where should we start? Could you maybe let's just start with didn't they used to be here a long time ago? And so this is not something necessarily new.

SPEAKER_04 6:43

That's right, that's right. They first showed up in Texas in 1932. So we don't hear much about that, but boy, they they had first showed up in in 1932, and and they had 180,000 livestock cases. Oh my goodness. Now, I know we're not talking about livestock here on the podcast. We're here to talk about wildlife.

SPEAKER_07 7:04

We could talk about all of it. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 7:07

Yeah, yeah, but but but just for context, in 1932, it it killed 180,000 livestock. And in 1932, livestock was king. You know, the Great Depression, the all that, all of that stuff going on. Wildlife was, you know, was it was an aside. You know, it's you you shot them year-round, basically. You shot them when you were hungry, you had you know, feed mama and the kids. There wasn't a whole lot of rules and laws and that kind of stuff. So the wildlife was not anything like it is now. So the whitetail population was extremely low, and it got a little lower uh in 1932. Eventually that that played out. We again we had the you know all of the all of the recovery period through the 40s, it took on, and then in the early 1950s, screw worms showed up again. And in about 1952, the state of Florida invented the idea of radiating um the male fly to make him sterile. So Florida, unfortunately it wasn't Texas, but Florida invented the radiation technique. But the Texas facility in Kerrville perfected it, perfected it to where they could sterilize the male and then you could put it in the airplane and disperse it to kill the flies. So that that was the uh the sterile fly technique that you hear so much about. So it was invented, it was created in Florida, but it was perfected in Texas. So the big outbreak of screw worms that kind of in in our sh you know, in our knowledge, we talk about the the the outbreak of the 50s, and by 1962, 1964, uh we were driving the screw worm out of Texas to the point in 1966 it was declared eradicated. Now, I think they used the wrong word because you know, eradicated to me, and probably eradicated to a lot of people means you know gone zero, no moss, but that was not the case. It was basically that there was there were still less than a hundred cases in Texas being reported, but they still called it eradicated because they pulled pushed it out of Texas. But, however, in 1970, 1971, we had two or three winters of below normal uh wintertime conditions. We had above average rainfall, uh above average temperatures. So in 1972, we had another major outbreak in 90,000 head of cattle died in 1972. But again, we already had the sterile fly technique perfected, and Kerrville, Texas, is right in the center of Texas, so they really had this, they were a little more prepared or a lot more prepared, and they knew how to fix it. So by 1974, they they pushed the fly back into Mexico. That's when the federal government said, you know what? Pushing it to the Rio Grande and pushing it to Mexico is not gonna work, right? It's like a rubber ball, it's just gonna keep, you know, we don't want to play tennis with this, with with Mexico. So the the United States, the the federal government, the Texas government, they said, we got to push this thing plum out of North America. And so they they just threw the kitchen sink out of it, and they pushed it all the way through Mexico, all the way into Colombia, and that's where you read about the Darien Gap. The Darien Gap is that area between Panama and and uh uh Colombia. It's like an hourglass shape, it's a very, very narrow isthmus. And so these flies don't like flying over water. And I don't know if it's because of the wind or the salt. I don't know why that is, but the flies don't like to fly over water, but they prefer to fly over land. Now it could be because they roost in habitat in the vegetation. You know, you know, they they they roost just like everything else roost, and they like the grass, they like the vegetation. So and the reports say that an adult fly under ideal conditions can only fly 12 miles a day. I don't know if they put a radio backpack on a fly. I don't know how the heck they did that, but if you read the reports, they say under ideal conditions, a fly can fly up to 12 miles a day. So that may be another reason why they don't fly over water, because you know, there's nowhere to roost, right? You just can't fly that fly, uh, fly that far. So anyway, long story short, United States, Mexico, they pushed it all the way down below the dairy and gap. And that's where it's been ever since the the mid-70s. And there the the United States and Mexico have been able to keep it there because it's a very small land mass, small area, right? And so if you produce so so then America, uh USDA created a financial facility down there in Panama to where all these years, ever since, they've been producing screw worm flies and and radiate them and keeping about a hundred million flies a week again in this Darien Gap to keep them contained in Colombia and below the Darien gap. A hundred million flies a week production kept them in that little hourglass narrow strip. And everything was just hunky-dory, everything went along great until about 2023. We had COVID. Kind of the world shut down, people shut down, industry shut down, but more importantly, the supply chain shut down. So those airplanes they were using needed maintenance. Those airplanes they were needing uses needed fuel. And when the mechanics couldn't get the equipment because of supply chain, when the fuel wasn't being produced and delivered because of, you know, the supply chain and humans and businesses, everything kind of stopped there for a period of time because of COVID. Then there was an administration in place that were trying to cut some costs, and you know, out of sight, out of mine, it's way down there in Panama, right? So there were some funding cuts, there was the world pandemic, there were some supply chain issues going on, and guess what? The little old fly got out of the Darien Gap. And if you look at the Darien Gap, if you Google and look at it, it's a very small hourglass shape, but immediately north of that, it widens. Not only does the fly go north, the fly can go east, the fly can go west. So once he gets out of that little narrow gap, that 100 million flies per week is not enough. And at that moment in time, in 2023, August of 2023, to be exact, that was the only facility in the world producing screw worm flies. So they were only can produce 100 million. And once that fly escaped the Darien Gap, that landmass, talking about Mexico, you know, it went north, east, and west, and so did the flies. So then when they said, oh no, you know, we we've got to work overtime, 100 million flies simply weren't enough to play catch up. So that's where the wheels fell off the cart, guys, was August of 2023. So we as Texans, we as United States were aware of this fact that, you know, uh-oh, they got out of our of our safe zone. And it doesn't matter how, it doesn't matter why. The fact is they're out, and now they're moving north uh northeast and west, and our production is no longer capable of, you know, it slowed them down, no doubt. Don't get me wrong, it slowed them down. But as as they traveled east, they traveled west, they continue to travel north, the airplanes and the limited amount of uh flies available, that's where we're at today. A hundred million flies. Once the cat got out of the bag, a hundred million flies was not enough.

SPEAKER_06 15:25

Help me under us understand that I get it. So they're they're catching these male flies and they're sterilizing them using radiation.

SPEAKER_04 15:34

Well, they're they're built, they're they're creating them in the lab.

SPEAKER_06 15:37

Oh they're lab-grown flies.

SPEAKER_04 15:39

They're lab-grown, right? So they have a broodstock of of adult flies and they're breeding them. And you know, so so it's selective breeding, if you would, um, and they're mass-rearing these flies and and radiating them and and and all of that stuff.

SPEAKER_06 15:55

So so they're lab-grown flies. So does it just are these natural flies trying to reproduce with the the lab-grown flies and and they're not being able to populate, or how does how does it control in it? It's I just don't understand that part of it.

SPEAKER_04 16:11

Yeah, so so the wild flies are obviously fertile and they're reproducing. So the lab-grown flies, once they go through the radiation process, that sterilizes the male. It doesn't impact the female, but but you know, the the flies are born or hatched, 50-50 sex ratio. So when you when you hear the number 100 million, fake 50 million males, 50 million females. And that's really important. We'll get to that in a little bit. So we say 100 million flies, we're talking about both sexes, but we don't need but the males. And here's why. Because the female, she's fertile even after radiation. So it doesn't affect her at all. It's only the male that it makes sterile. And so the biology of the fly, historically, it was believed that the male bred one female fly and he just fell over dead. Well, more recently, we're learning that's not exactly right. It's close, but it's not exactly right. So the male might breed a couple, literally a handful of females, and then he falls over dead. Well, the female, once she's bred, she has about a 12 to 14 day window in there where she needs to lay her eggs. So she goes from being impregnated, she doesn't know if she's infertile, right? She just she just got impregnated, and she thinks, now I've got 12 to 14 days, I've got to go search out host. Now, a host, let's talk about that real quick. A host is any warm-blooded animal, not mammal, animal. So if it bleeds, if it has red blood, if it bleeds, it's a potential host. Think mouse, rat, bird, anything with four legs, you know, badger, porcupine, mountain lion, white-tailed deer, elephant, humans. So if it bleeds, it it is subject to screw worm infestation. Now, she wants to find a wound, an opening on this animal, but if she doesn't, she will go to a natural opening. Oh no. Obviously.

SPEAKER_06 18:25

Oh no. We don't have to completely understand what a natural opening is. Horrifus. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 18:34

We don't have to go down that rabbit trail. So she wants she wants to find a wound, but if not, okay, a natural opening on either end will work just awful.

SPEAKER_06 18:46

Man.

SPEAKER_04 18:47

But also, guys, here's the worst part of it: a tick, a flea. When they bite you, they create an opening. And it's that size of an opening. So we it didn't have to be a bullet wound, an archery wound. It doesn't have to be a large gaping wound. It can be a tick bite in the ear. And that's all that that female fly needs to penetrate the skin. So finally she finds a host with an opening, man-made, natural, whatever.

SPEAKER_06 19:21

We all got them.

SPEAKER_04 19:22

She's we all got them. We got a couple of them, in a matter of fact. And it's hard to cover them all. And so she's gonna go in there and lay between 100 and 300 eggs at a time. And she can double clutch. So 200 to 600, perhaps. But let's just say 100 to 300 eggs in that wound. And then she dies shortly thereafter. So remember, dad's all he dad's dead and gone. He's been dead a while, right?

SPEAKER_06 19:53

A couple weeks.

SPEAKER_04 19:53

Now mom's flying around for 12 to 14 days to, you know, talking about maximum, 12 to 14 days to lay her eggs. She lays her eggs, she falls over and dead. So there's no parental controls, right? Everybody's dead and gone. Now, I think it's about four days' time those eggs turn into maggots. Now, if she was bred by a sterile male, those eggs never turn into anything, right? Because they're not fertilized. That's the beautiful thing of the lab grown radiated sterile male. It stops that life cycle. But let's say that it was a fertile male with a fertile female, which they all are, and then they lay the eggs. So three to four days, give or take, those those eggs turn into, they pupate, they turn into maggots. Well, the maggots are self-defe self-sufficient, they have to feed themselves. And they're the only maggot in the world that feeds on living flesh. So of all those animals that bleed that we talked about, they all have living flesh. And now there's through there's 100 to 300 maggots that are hungry and they have to feed themselves. So what do they do? They start burrowing, they start nosediving, they start head diving into the living flesh.

SPEAKER_06 21:15

Deeper.

SPEAKER_04 21:16

Deeper, screwing in because they don't want to come out, they want to go in. They're feeding themselves. So as they're eating, the body, you know, it's trying to defend itself, right? It's draining, it's oozing. And then these maggots are pooping, right? If you eat on one end, you gotta go out the back end, right? North and south, that kind of thing. So what you learn real quick with a with a screw worm infestation is the smell. And so that smell attracts other females. So the wound is, you know, draining for lack of a better word, and then the Maggots are defecating and passing, you know, they're they're growing, right? What goes in has to come out. And that stench, that odor, attracts more females. Because again, the wound is now getting bigger, larger, deeper, wider. So here comes more females. And they're laying more eggs. And that cycle's continuing on. So you could have one big wound with generational maggots. So remember, you might have the original maggots that are, let's just say, two inches deep, right? Because they're they're burrowing in. But on the outer edge, you've got eggs because there was another two, three, four females that found that that wound that attracted one and laid more eggs. So all of a sudden, you've got another generation of maggots into that wound. And it's getting larger, it's getting deeper, it's getting more, you know, severe for that animal. So you can imagine what the animal's going through, right? Um, and it depends on where this wound is. You know, they're rubbing, they're they're not eating, they're not acting normal, they're not breeding, they're not, you know, they're not acting normal, right? You can imagine the pain and the discomfort. Um, so so that's usually how you find it is there's there's swelling at the sight, the animals acting strangely, um, but but the smell is what is going to give it away a lot of times because it's a unique smell, because it's a it's a dead flesh smell from a living animal. That's that's that's just the cleanest way to put it. Um, because it's it's rotting flesh.

SPEAKER_06 23:38

Sure. So back to the sterilized males, are they just outcompeting all the fertile males that are out there? You're putting that many numbers out there, so they they just don't have the the the object is to have just that many sterile males out there that the non-sterile males can't breed. Gotcha. Just outcompete.

SPEAKER_04 23:58

That's exactly right. We're trying we're trying to outcompete the natives. So, yeah, I mean, let's just say there's you know 50,000 males out there. Well, you you got to put several million sterile males to outcompete them. Gotcha. So, yeah, yeah, it's just it's just a numbers game. I mean, this is just yeah, this is mathematics. It isn't biology, it's maths. I've read they're doing this just mathematics.

SPEAKER_07 24:18

So, yeah, I've read that like a human finds out they have it, they can't just go pluck them out their self. It's got some kind of dire consequences in that they give you a heavy dose of ivermectin to kind of stop them where they are and you have to get them medically removed. Is that right?

SPEAKER_04 24:36

That that's right. So think of like a tick. You know, you you can you can pull a tick off your yourself, but you've got to be careful that you get it all. You know, if you break off the head or the mouth part, what's gonna happen? It's gonna get infected. Well, remember these screw worms, and I know you all seen pictures of them lately because you've been doing your due diligence. A screw worm has these two giant fangs, big teeth. And so as as they're foraging, they're they're climbing in, you know, they don't have arms or legs, right? So the the way they're forward momentum into the body is they're they're using those big teeth to latch on to the to the tissue and pull themselves inward. That's the screw worm part of it. So if you grab a screw worm by the butt or by the back, you can pull them in half. It's like you have a mess, right?

SPEAKER_02 25:27

A barb on the end of a hook, kind of.

SPEAKER_04 25:29

That's exactly right. So so to your point, if you if you pull them in half, you're gonna just you're gonna add infection to the problem. So you need to cut them out and dig them out.

SPEAKER_07 25:39

Ooh, I was wondering everybody out there is want to hear this one. Is there any like if in an infected area, is there any prevention by like taking the ivermectin? There's a lot of people that do take it ivein.

SPEAKER_06 25:49

We'll go get some today.

SPEAKER_07 25:50

Is there any is there any prevention that people can have any kind of that helps at all preventative-wise?

SPEAKER_04 25:57

You know, that that is a great question, and we're working on that right now. So so the USDA and all of the federal agencies, they they've been working diligently on livestock prevention. Oh, yeah. Basically human food supply, you think about you know, livestock primarily.

SPEAKER_07 26:16

Well, that ivermectin was invented for livestock, so I mean, you know.

SPEAKER_04 26:21

Right. So all of the testing and all the research since you know, since the 50s, like we've been talking about earlier, has really primarily been on the human food supply chain. So again, domestic livestock. And because again, in the 50s, white-tailed deer, you know, that there was 232,000 white-tailed deer in Texas in the 50s. Wow. Today there's five and a half million. So it's it, you know, we can sit here today and we can say, how do you, what do you mean you didn't think about white-tailed deer in the 50s? Well, there was 232,000 white-tail in the state. Today there's 5.5 million. So it's it's apples to oranges to to struggle to understand that they didn't think about white-tailed deer because there wasn't very many white-tailed deer to think about at that time. It was all about, you know, post-war, you know, feet feeding the family, feeding the, you know, all that stuff. Yeah, they were uh recovery and all that stuff. They weren't new leaders. Anyway, everything was Yeah.

SPEAKER_07 27:17

Well, they were more spread about, so it was less of a problem anyway.

SPEAKER_04 27:20

So it is what it is. That's right. That's right. In most places in Texas, you had less than one deer per 200 acres. So I say, just out of sight, out of mind, white-tailed deer were not on anybody's radar at that time. So 100% of the research, 100% of the scientific information was livestock, justifiably so. So now we fast forward and we say, okay, I want to use ivermectin for my white-tailed deer. Well, legally, the federal government says you can't do that because we have no data. In other words, it's not prescribed. It's never been researched for white-tailed deer. So it's out of prescription. So a veterinarian, a doctor, can't write a prescription that's not included in that.

SPEAKER_06 28:10

Yeah, but on the off-label. Isn't that what we call that?

SPEAKER_07 28:13

But I mean that's off-label, that's right. We need them. We need emergency measures. Like they what is a vaccine. It was crazy how fast they fast-tracked it. Seems like if this is an emergency, it's a good thing.

SPEAKER_06 28:29

But ivermectin will treat them.

SPEAKER_04 28:33

So so let's yeah, let's talk about that just real quick. So what so to your point, the the there is a lot of emergency uh declarations, and right now there is ongoing research for white-tailed deer with ivermectin, and it's showing it's showing extreme promise. So the the the USBA, the FDA, the Texas Animal Health Commission, all of the agencies are engaging with this research on whitetail deer in an emergency approval situation, but it's still pending approval. So as we sit here and talk today, we don't have it. But also as we sit here and talk today, they're working on that approval process. So I don't know factually that's gonna happen, but I am very hopeful that it will and that it might. So fingers crossed on that.

SPEAKER_02 29:23

So Yeah, I would think that you know you could it would be easy to dose a deer in a captive area, but how are you gonna dose a a wild deer, you know, properly?

SPEAKER_04 29:35

So everything we know about medicine, even human medicine, is based on body weight. So the first thing you do when you go to the doctor's office, you know, when you leave the waiting room and you go back to the back, the first thing they do is they put you on a scale. You know, they they ask you your your birthday and they and you stand on a scale. They have to know your age and your body weight. So then when you finally see the doctor and he he or she goes to prescribe any kind of medication that's based on your body weight. That's why it's not allowed to you take your prescription medicine and give it to your wife or your children or your best friend, because their body weight and your body weight and their age and your age are different. So it's illegal to take a prescription medicine and give it to your best friend or give it to your cousins, uncles, nephew, because everything in the medical community world is based on body weight. So, to your question, how much does your deer weigh? Well, you you know the ones that you shot, you can weigh them, field rest body weight, and you can extrapolate and say, you know, you can add 30% for body weight, field dress, you can extrapolate that. But then the then the real question is how many, how many deer do I have? How many of the deer that I have are gonna eat it? Right. And which of those deer are gonna eat it? So dosage is going to be, I'm not gonna say impossible because I I don't know if it's impossible, but dosage is gonna be the trick. And so therein lies the problem where the veterinary community says, Well, wait a minute. You know, we can't just throw out a, you know, we can't just go willy-nilly, mix up a bunch of feed and throw it out there because we're worried about dosage. Now, underdosage leads to potential resistance. Yeah, and things like ivermectin and dectamax, you can't really overdose some of these animals. Right. In other words, it's so safe you can't overdose them, but you can clearly underdose them. And therein lies the major problem is we could potentially create a superbug or you know, a resistant animal.

SPEAKER_06 31:42

So, Dudley, you've been taking enough of the co-op ibromectin. You think you aren't underdosing?

SPEAKER_02 31:46

No, we get the prescription.

SPEAKER_06 31:47

Oh, okay, my bad.

SPEAKER_02 31:48

Um, I want to ask about uh are is there any research on natural predators for the spoon worm that you know of?

SPEAKER_04 31:58

I I hear a little bit about the wasp and some biological um things, but I I I'm I'm not aware of it beyond the laboratory statement.

SPEAKER_02 32:08

Okay.

SPEAKER_04 32:09

So I I'm not aware of now one thing that's going on right now on an experimental basis, again, this is down in in deep South America, really Panama to be specific, is the Novo fly. Now that is that is a sexed specific fly. So you know, a while ago we were talking about lab-created flies. They were mass-producing male and female flies, right? That's just you know, half of them are male, half of them are female. This novo N-O-V-O, that's that's genetically based, where they are only producing sexed flies. So male flies. They are only producing male flies. And again, in in the world of screw worm prevention, that's all we care about. We don't need or want a female fly. So the technology has come up in a genetic environment to where they can create a basically a sex semen. That's that's probably not the right word, but they're they're able to sex semen and create only male flies. So so again, I alluded to this earlier. When when you hear the word or the phrase, we're releasing a hundred million flies, you gotta be thinking in your head, well, but that's only 50 million male flies.

SPEAKER_06 33:24

And those so this so the female could actually, if she did hook up with a native screw worm fly ho uh male, then she could have uh babies. Babies.

SPEAKER_03 33:37

So if you take those half of the So maybe I'm thinking about, you know, right now in in Texas, South Texas, y'all's phones are dropping or about to start dropping. No problem. And I'm I'm thinking about an exposed umbilical cord, and I'm thinking about a orifice that's prolapsed and exposed out uh that that mama that she's weak, she's in a vulnerable state there.

SPEAKER_07 34:04

Eyes, ears, nose, that means pick your spot. Yeah, how how what what it's it's a buffet. Yeah, unfortunately.

SPEAKER_04 34:13

What's the what's everybody thinking? Yeah, yeah, you're exactly right on all accounts. So so our our early born fawns in north and central Texas started hitting the ground in the end of May. So we have fawns on the ground right now. Now you you mentioned South Texas. Those happen later this month. So the end of May, because Texas is so big from north to south. So we go from May to August is our fawning season. If you talk about the panhandle to Texas to the valley of South Texas, you're looking at May to August. So we have a very long fawning date because what is it, 800 miles from north to south Texas? Um, so yeah, you're exactly right. Fawns are the most susceptible. And what happened in the 50s and the 60s, and what Texas Animal Health and Texas Parks and Wildlife have reported factually in the past is we can lose up to 80% of our fawns through a severe screw worm infection. That's right. Oh man, that's right. That's right. So we we could lose 80% of our production, and then you're gonna lose some percentage of the of the dough of the female in that birthing process, in that prolapse, all of that stuff. And then what happens after that is the antlershedding season. So right now the the bucks are, yeah, the whitetailed bucks are just kind of laying around in bachelor groups, chewing their cud, laying in the shade, getting fat. They've got ticks on them, right? And so the tick offers, you know, that female flying avenue, but he's he's pretty safe right now. You know, he probably doesn't have a lot of scratches on him. He's he's got ticks, and that's probably his only vulnerability right now. Uh, but it's the female and it's the fawn that's you know right here. And the umbilicus is, you know, there there's there's 14 cases, positive cases, in in domestic livestock in Texas right now. And almost all of those have been umbilicus, umbilical cord. So again, there's there's fawns hitting the ground right now. I I just have to assume that that's happening right now in whitetailed deer. Now, to be real clear, there's been dead fawns found. Dead fawns and dead deer found, but by the time they find them, they have maggots on them. So we've collected maggots, we've sent it to the lab, and it comes back as what's called secondary screw worm. And that's different. You need to Google this, it's it's pretty amazing that it's different than New World Screw Worm. So secondary screw worm is a screw worm that affects dead tissue. It it's it's the it's the JV team, it's it's the second team, it's the bench team behind the new world screw worm. So there yet in Texas, there has not been a case, and I'm knocking on wood, you can't see me, but I'm knocking on wood, of a white-tailed deer or wildlife, just wildlife in general, feral hog, anything, infected with New World Screwworm, but there's been multiple cases of secondary screw worm infections. And I think, guys, because you know, you you you can't put your hands on a wild white-tailed deer, you can't put your hands on a feral hog unless they're sick or dying or you see buzzards. So we've got it right now. We we have positive infections right now, screw worm in livestock, in goats, in dogs, and in lambs. So sheep, goats, livestock, and a dog. The dog is in New Mexico. Now, I and again, they're they're in seven different counties. So I again I'm kind of going out on a limb here, but I'm I'm a realist, I'm a practicalist. If they're in seven different counties, they're in four or five different species, my assumption is they have to be in wildlife.

SPEAKER_07 38:01

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 38:02

We just simply can't put our eyes and hands on wildlife yet. So again, I'm not saying they are, but if you look at the, if you look at the math, if you look at the area of Texas, they are, I feel pretty certain that they're having some level of impact right now. But we don't, this is not our wildlife survey season. That starts at the tail end of August and begins in earnest about September 1st. So, you know, if somebody says, well, what impact are they having in Texas wildlife? I would have to honestly look at you and say, I don't know yet. But maybe by the second week in September I can answer the question, you know, with factual information and data, because we will find the carcasses and we might see some impacted animals, sick, dying animals. Um, but we'll certainly know from a survey population level, you know, did the population go down 20%, 50%? We will certainly be able to identify and survey the fawn production, the production that crossed the board, feral hogs, sounder size. I do all of that. When I do a helicopter survey, I count javelinas, I count feral hogs, and I count, is that a sow, or is that a boar, or is that a shoat, or is that a piglet? So at the end of a helicopter survey day, when I fly your ranch in Texas, I can tell you you've got 20 adult pigs and you've got 84 shoats. In other words, you've got a lot of production. So we need to set traps or we need to do some aerial gunning because those shoats aren't reproductively successful yet. But you've only got 20 breeders out there today, but in six weeks, you're fixing to have an entire big problem on your hand because those shoats are going to be sexually mature. And your your population is going to go from 20 adults to, you know, 100 adults, breeding-age adults. So I count production on every animal: whitetail deer, mule deer, javelina, feral hogs, and all that stuff as a barometer. So maybe by September the 10th or September the 14th, we could revisit and I could tell you mathematically, in the areas that I've surveyed, what that impact is or was. But right now, sitting here looking at you, I don't have any survey data. I only have reports of people finding dead animals, but unfortunately, by the time they find them, it's the secondary wave, it's a secondary screw worm that's on them, because we're finding them, unfortunately, by the buzzards or by the smell. Yeah. So so right now, I can just imagine there's got to be some impact, but I I honestly can't put a number on it as I sit here today.

SPEAKER_03 40:46

So, Masha, let me ask this. Last week there was a storm system Arthur that hovered over South Texas and the and the and blew into South Mississippi, create a lot of flooding through into Louisiana. Could it have blown some of these uh screw worm flies this direction?

SPEAKER_04 41:05

I I think hypothet uh I think hypothetically it could have. It makes sense to me, because some of the literature that the USDA and Texas Animal Health Commission puts out that fronts, you know, high winds, weather can can move those flies. Now, can it move them 200 miles? Nobody said that, and I don't I don't know the answer to that. Can it move them 40 or 50 miles? I would think certainly it could do that. Um so so yeah, I believe the answer is probably yes.

SPEAKER_02 41:33

Wow. Um just off the top of my head, I was thinking about another possible control. Um, I know you know house flies are susceptible to BT, specifically BTI, uh the mosquito dunks. Um I've had a lot of luck doing the little mosquito dunk buckets in my yard. Um I wonder, uh do you know if anybody's researched the use of BT, like if you could put it in drinking water or something, you know, those maggots start eating the flesh and then they get into that BT. I wonder if that is something they could study.

SPEAKER_04 42:11

That is a great question. And I'll be honest, the the the Veterinary Society and the USDA, they are doing so many mass releases of different medicines and and uh approved chemicals, emergency approved chemicals. Again, it's for your dogs and your cats and your chickens and your goats, all of the domestic animals. That could be included in there. They released, I think on Friday, they released a list of 12 new drugs, again, that veterinary science and people can put on domestic animals. So it could be there on Friday. That could have been one of the 12, but I'll be honest with you, the information is coming in so fast, so rapid. Yeah, I'm having a hard time, you know, keeping up. But again, I'm I'm focused more on wildlife, and so I can sit here today and unequivocally tell you that Dectomax was recently approved for deer, and somebody mentioned it a while ago about captive deer. And I know that may not be our prime audience today, but there there is a veterinary relationship that you can have with a captive deer herd and be thinking about zoos, petting zoos, regular zoos, rehabbers, breeding facility, research facility. You know, we're talking about white-tailed deer, but again, we're talking, they're in zoos also, they're in research facilities. So you can put your hand on those animals, or you can at least put a dart in their butt. So you can get a vet a vet to prescribe Dectomax to treat white-tailed deer right now. It just became approved. But what what what the ranchers of Texas are trying to do, what a lot of the wildlife biologists in Texas, like myself, are trying to do is get a feed additive approved for wild deer. And again, that that whole argument comes back to what we just talked about. About dosage and underdosing and all that. But there's a lot of ranches in Texas, guys, that some a lot of them have high fences, or regardless of the high fence, a lot of them have been doing surveys for decades. Think 10, 20, 30 years. Talking about wildlife surveys, spotlight surveys, helicopter surveys, trail camera surveys. And when you plot that over a decade's time, you develop a trend. And so it's not an exact number by any means. I've never testified to that, but it's trends. So you do know your approximate density, your acres per deer. You do know your approximate sex ratio. And because you're tracking your survey, you're also probably probably tracking your harvest. Harvest meaning not only your numbers, but your weights, your body weight. Sometimes it's live weight, sometimes it's field rest body weight. But field rest body weight can very, very accurately be correlated to live weight. And so if you have your survey data, if you have your harvest data, then we're trying to build a case that once this medicated feed gets approved, that hope and prayer is to give the veterinary world the confidence needed to write a prescription for your ranch. So we're not asking for every feed store in Texas to carry this medicated feed because, again, that resistance is real. That that under medication is going to create a whole nother set of problems. But if you have all of those criteria we just discussed in place, survey data, harvest data, and a relationship with a veterinary veterinarian, then we're asking for temporary emergency prescription use. So think about that. Temporary emergency prescription use of medicated feed for wildlife. So we're not saying 12 months, two years, 10 years. Let's put a number on it, 60 days. Let's put a number on it 90 days because we have to get through the summer months, because cold weather slows down, even prevents the travel and the breeding of the screw worm. So we just had summer solstice yesterday. So we're halfway through. Our days are getting shorter now, and we just entered basically the summer months, right? So and we just talked about the babies. We we're gonna have babies on the ground until August, and it's at the end of June. So if we could use the temporary emergency prescription use of medicated wildlife feed, my argument is give me 60 days or give me 90 days for two reasons. That's gonna get us through that umbilical stage, right? And in September, our weather starts cooling down in Texas. In other words, it's still gonna be warm, but our weather starts cooling down. And by October, it can get cold. So we're we're past the umbilical stage on every animal we're we're we're discussing. Every animal is done having babies in in late August, early September, and then our weather starts cooling off. Our days get shorter, our nights get cooler, so the screw worm itself slows down.

SPEAKER_03 47:30

What are you thinking is gonna happen? When you look into your crystal ball and you what's what's September gonna look like?

SPEAKER_04 47:38

I was hoping you wouldn't ask me this question. But you did, and I you did, and I'm an honest guy, and I'm gonna answer it honestly. And that's just the way we got to do it. So let me back up, guys. So so there's there's the facility in Panama that's producing a hundred million flies a week. Texas is getting 20% of those. The other 80%, they're still dropping flies like crazy in Mexico because you know, if you're watching Mexico, it's out of control. You know, there's 30,000 cases in Mexico. 1,100 cases in humans. We we didn't talk about that very much a while ago. Humans, yeah, let's let's let that sink in just a little bit. In Mexico, there's 1,100 confirmed cases in Mexico of humans. So they get 80% of the 100 million. That's pretty simple math. We get 20%. But now there's also another facility. I'm gonna I'm gonna refresh my notes. I wrote it down and I don't want to mispronounce it. But there's another facility in Matapa, Mexico. It's an old fruit fly facility in Matapa, Mexico, and it's under construction right now. So it's producing zero. But it's fixing to come online to begin producing anywhere from 60 to 100 million flies. And again, you've got to divide that number in half, right? Male, female, right? The whole idea. So when it's at its maximum capacity, which it won't start at maximum capacity, they have to build their broodstock up, right, when they're breeding these flies. But when it's at its maximum capacity, which might take a year or two, they're gonna be at 60 to 100 million flies. Now, in Texas, in the Moore airbase, the Moore airfield in Edinburgh, Texas, they are just now constructing uh a facility. It's under construction. They're working very fast, very diligently, to have the one and only United States breeding facility.

unknown 49:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 49:46

Guys, it's under construction.

SPEAKER_04 49:48

Well, yay, but guys, it's under construction. So, you know, what does that mean to us today? It means it's under construction, as well as the monopolist. So, so right now, as I sit here looking at you, we have 20% of 100 million. That's not a whole lot.

SPEAKER_06 50:06

So that's 20 million. So there you go.

SPEAKER_04 50:09

There you go. And so to answer the question, we got seven counties in Texas. When you plot them on a map, and you can go to screwworm.gov, you can see it. It's already plotted on a map.

SPEAKER_06 50:23

I'm looking at it right now. It appears that, yeah, it appears they're headed north. Looks like they're just south of 20 there in Abilene, southwest of Abilene.

SPEAKER_04 50:32

That's right. They're they're they're headed north-northwest. And the the fly facility, you know, look look look up uh look up where the fly facility is. So, so at the Moore Air Force Base, uh there's they're having a uh a facility to where they can bring the pupa, the the eggs, out of Panama to Edinburgh, Texas, and they can put them in these trays, and now they're delivering them by airplane to these Texas ranches, and they're putting them in a think of a bird feeder. That's not, you know, it it hangs in a in a facility in a tree, and it's pupa. And they're they're they're they're dyed kind of blue-green, kind of neon turquoise color, and they they're they're refrigerated, they're in a cooler, and they're pupa, and then they put them on a ranch in Texas in this protective birdcage looking thing, and you walk away, and the temperature raises, rises, and the pupa turn into adult flies, sterilized flies, and they leave this protective cage. And they're putting those out as fast as they can. But they're pupa, they're not flies. Now they they turn into flies, right? But from aerial drops, you know, aerial drops, they're they're they're putting out literally handfuls of billions of flies because we only have handfuls of flies to to spare. Because the bulk of the flies are being dropped in Mexico because they're trying to slow it down. Because if if you go back on that same website, or and the Texas Animal Health Commission has a neat website, you can go into Mexico and you can see the outbreaks, the different states and the different uh states and provinces of Mexico. You can see it, how it how it spreads in the thousands and thousands of cases. So they're trying to keep those numbers from reaching Texas. So they're dropping many more flies in Mexico, but that's helping Texas. You see what I mean? They're still fighting like heck to keep them out of Texas. They're in Texas, but not, they're only in a fraction, fractional number in Texas, like they are in Mexico. So they're still dropping the bulk of flies in Mexico to prevent them from coming to Texas. But right now, to answer your long your question, we don't have enough flies. The math is simply not there. Again, this isn't a biology question, this is a math question. We don't have the facilities in uh Moppas, we don't have the facilities yet in uh mission in Moore in Edinburgh, Texas. They're under construction, they're working their butt off, but today we don't have it. And we're sharing 100 million flies. And if you look at the history books, if you look at the facts, it took somewhere in the neighborhood of 500 million flies per week to push it out of Texas into Mexico, and then took a little bit more, like 700 million, to push them further down to the Panama, uh, the isthmus of Panama. Now, again, when we say 500 and 700 million, that's male-female. So, so this this mass research project of the Novo fly, that could be a huge game changer. Again, that's experimental science. It's it sound science fiction, but it's not been approved, it's not been released, it's still in the uh experimental lab stages. But think about that, guys. If we could get these facilities up and running, and and they say we can produce, you know, 100 million flies, and all of a sudden this novo fly technology happens, that could be a game changer really fast if if these two facilities could, in fact, produce 100 million flies each, and they were 100 million male flies.

SPEAKER_06 54:21

Right, not just female, it doubles your number. Bobby. Yes. Are you planning to go to Cancun this summer? I'm not. Well, good. If you do, cover your orfices up. Yeah, because they're down there, dude.

SPEAKER_04 54:34

I would wear I would wear goggles, I would have my I would have my COVID mouse covered.

SPEAKER_02 54:39

I'm gonna be the boy in the bubble. Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 54:41

If anybody going to Cancun this summer, cover your orphices.

SPEAKER_03 54:45

Well, Brian, we have a mutual friend. Brian Vogue sent me uh some imagery of some flights in South Texas where they're and it boy, they are you guys are covering that country. I mean, you couldn't, I mean, it's completely these this uh imagery of I guess it's airplanes flying and dropping flying and they they got it covered. They're doing the best they can.

SPEAKER_04 55:07

Guys, they they are working around the clock. I mean, I I'm talking to the USDA and the Texas Animal Health Commission, the Texas Parks and Wildlife. I'm talking to them on Sunday. I'm talking to them at 8 30 on Sunday night. I I've got it, I've got to tell you, the agency, that that's all the the alphabets, the agency people from the state and the federal level, I'm here to testify they're working their butt off. I bet. Again, the the problem here is that that fly got out of the Darien Gap in August of 2023. My personal humble opinion, we didn't we didn't react quite quick enough. You know, again, you you could say federal bureaucracy, state bureaucracy, funding bureaucracy, it it doesn't matter. The fact is we know they got out of that little isthmus, that narrow channel, August of 2023. And we weren't quite, this is my words, we were not quite as prepared as probably we should have been, and we're paying for it now. But but now that you know better, you do better, right? And so I I know the Trump administration, I know the agencies, the alphabet agencies, they're working their butts off. They are, but I feel like we're a little bit behind the eight ball, just you know, all honesty, ethical. I think we are behind the eight ball. Um, but I'm really excited if we could get this novo fly, this mail-only fly, and if we could get this emergency temporary use of prescribed medicated wildlife feed, I think we have a great chance of buffering the heck out of this thing.

SPEAKER_03 56:42

Well, that's that's a good way to say it. Yeah, encouraging.

SPEAKER_04 56:45

Yeah, I'm I'm struggling here. I'm trying to be so politically correct. You've done great. Doing really good. I'm struggling. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 56:52

Uh you keep bringing up the narrow point, the isthmus, knocking it back to there. Um, how do they travel south to South America?

SPEAKER_04 57:02

They they do. They do. And and they have literally, they being the ranchers and the wildlife producers, they've learned to deal with it. So from a wildlife perspective, it's almost taken all their wildlife away. Um, but on a on a on a livestock basis, they're breeding, they change their breeding cycles. So they do have a little bit of winter, they do have wetter seasons, you know, where the flies aren't as active and that kind of stuff. They have a wet season, a monsoon season, that kind of stuff. So they're breeding their animals to be born in the lowest fly season, if that makes sense. And then that's something that we as Texas producers are talking about, but you know, and again, we're talking about uh domestic livestock. You can adjust your bulls, your males, you can adjust that, but not right now. It's you know, that the cat's already out of the bag. Everybody in Texas, you know, raises their babies in the spring, right? Because of the rain and the green, lush conditions. Well, that's exactly the wrong time for screw worms. So now, starting right now, there are people that are trying to adjust their birthing, their calving, their their deck, their rates to readjust to fall. Um, obviously, we can't do any of that with wildlife. But to answer your question, uh the wildlife below the isthmus is is is very, very important conditioned. But but also, this is really important, guys, the the labor, the manual labor in South America and below the in Colombia is cheap. The the they it is like in South Africa or Africa, if you've ever been there, they have a labor force that we don't. They don't value the human life like we do. And so they literally have people sleeping with these animals, you know, in a corral, laying down in a manger on the hay with these cows, with these goats, with these sheep, because their livelihood depends on it. We don't do that. And are we willing to do that? Can we afford to do that? I'm I'm not so sure. But but in these very, very poor communities, they're bringing their animals indoors. They are literally living with these animals because that milk cow is their life. You see what I'm saying? Nobody on this podcast, I am certain of this, nobody on this podcast's livelihood depends on that one cow. But when you get into certain countries, your life depends on that one cow or that milk goat or those you know, or that herd of goats. So you sleep with them, you live with them, you lay down with them, you eat lunch with them. And so that is a a scenario that I'm not sure Texans or North Americans would be willing to do. So, so so there's that factor there, is it's not monitoring, it's living with. So, so Texans were saying, you know, monitor livestock, use your binoculars, check your cows.

SPEAKER_06 1:00:16

Well, I tell you what, looking at the map of South America, it's got the majority of South America. I mean, the the this it's there. It's tough.

SPEAKER_03 1:00:23

Why don't we do this? Why don't we take a deep breath? Dudley, why don't you ask him some rapid fire questions? I should uh Okay. We forgot we forgot to get to know him. Yeah, I've got I got so excited to hearing you talk about mountain lines that uh I forgot to do this, so forgive me.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:38

All right, Macy. So uh we're gonna just try to get to know you a leave a a little bit more, and uh I'm gonna ask you about 10 questions real quick. Uh so Tech Mex or regular Mexic?

SPEAKER_04 1:00:52

Regular Mex.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:53

Uh favorite hot sauce. Ooh.

SPEAKER_04 1:00:56

I hate hot sauce. I I I have a phobia against spicy hot food, so zero.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:01

Okay, okay, I can handle that. Um for some more fun stuff. What is the largest largemouth a client has caught, and what is the largest your team has captured during a survey?

SPEAKER_06 1:01:16

12 pounds on both. Okay, huge. Look at Bobby.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:20

I want to go feed you and look at him down there. Uh name a common weed uh in Texas that deer just love to eat.

SPEAKER_04 1:01:29

Oh gosh, uh cowpen daisy. Ah, okay.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:33

Name your what is your favorite ecoregion in Texas? Physiographic region. South Texas Plains. What is the most challenging ecoregion in Texas to manage a deer herd? Transfagus. What is the highest scoring free-ranging white tail you've ever scored?

SPEAKER_06 1:01:55

Three 310 or 320? Oh my goodness. Bobby, you're gonna pass out over there. Free range? Free range.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:04

Uh you know, a lot of those people don't talk, you know. Yeah, I wouldn't talk about that at all. What is the oldest white tail you've ever aged? Uh by toothware cementum annuli 18. All right, and what is what is the heaviest white tail you've ever weighed?

SPEAKER_04 1:02:24

275, 278. Okay, that's a beast.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:28

And uh, do you guys have a record amount of feral hogs you've taken from a helicopter trip?

SPEAKER_06 1:02:35

Well, I do that for a living, and we've killed over 412 in one day. Come on, fly over Mississippi. You go girl.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:45

Last but not least. I don't do it. Uh aside from deer, what species would you say is currently the most fun for you to manage the landscape for?

SPEAKER_04 1:02:57

Oh, that is a fantastic question. But I I I love turkey just like you guys, and they've they uh prose a big challenge. Uh the the I'm gonna say turkey. Well good answers.

SPEAKER_06 1:03:08

Hit the horns for the new next and up to a little horns.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:16

You get a 12-pound bat, 300-inch wide tail.

SPEAKER_07 1:03:19

Always you got a new best friend, let me tell you. When you said 312, I thought we were gonna have to get the paddles on Bobby.

SPEAKER_06 1:03:25

His eyes roll back in the middle of his head for a minute.

SPEAKER_07 1:03:28

And you also discovered after listening to that that not everybody kills a huge deer brags about it, Bobby. They keep it a secret.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:37

Loose lips sink ships. That's right. That's right.

SPEAKER_04 1:03:41

Um let me comment on that, guys. I'm a boon and crockett and a Pope and Young scorer for about 24 years now. And so I score a lot of animals. And and I can I can attest that there's bigger deer every year in Texas than people can ever imagine. But to your point, they they don't want the limelight, you know. Of course, now we have to worry about social media and all that comes with it. Yeah, you know, a lot of it's positive, but there's a lot of it negative. Oh, yeah. But also poaching, yes, you know, private privacy. What I would say the answer to that is because of privacy reasons. In other words, they don't want anybody else to know how big a deer they're raising. But as a boon and crockett measure, I'm quote official, I will go and score it, not for the Boon and Crockett record book, you know, not to enter it in a boon and crockett, but because I'm an official measurer and I know exactly how to do it and all the rules and regulations, I will go measure it using the Boone and Crockett system or the Pope and Young system. And like I say, it may come up to 312. And I can't tell you how many NDAs I've had to sign. I swear to you. It's a dangerous thing. Everything's bigger in Texas.

SPEAKER_07 1:04:53

Good for them, actually.

SPEAKER_04 1:04:54

Yeah. You can go pull the Boone and Crockett record book for Texas, and I'm here to tell you it is not what's out there. That's what's being reported, but it's not what's out there.

SPEAKER_03 1:05:06

And that that that uh just makes me smile to get it. Yeah, does that?

SPEAKER_07 1:05:09

Yeah, yeah, me too.

SPEAKER_06 1:05:10

It's like you know, believe out a toll, that one.

SPEAKER_07 1:05:12

Yeah, if you kind of know everything, the the aura, the mystery, the whatever what's the word, fascination with it, uh sense of wonderment that I talked about. That wonderment, that's it. Kind of goes away, so good for that.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:23

Yeah, not everybody has to brag about it. Right. Um well, I was I thought you were gonna answer quail when you said turkey because I was I was looking at your business's website uh and there is a photo um of uh an overhead photo of an area that y'all have uh intensively managed for quail. And it was one of the coolest things I've ever seen. It was just these huge, like kind of circular pockets of cover, uh you know, surrounded by open ground. Uh it it was anyway, what what is the name? Of your business, by the way.

SPEAKER_04 1:06:02

So the name of my company is called Spring Creek Outdoors. Spring Creek Outdoors.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:07

I was on the Spring Creek Outdoors website. Y'all should go check it out. They're doing some really cool stuff. Yeah. That's neat.

SPEAKER_03 1:06:14

Yeah. Can't wait. So Spring Creek. Macy, uh, look, hang in there with me on this. We've got a trivia question, and Dudley has done the trivia question. Oh wow.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:24

This is the first trivia question that's ever been approved from Bobby. So I'm excited.

SPEAKER_03 1:06:29

So our trivia is brought is sponsored by we've got friends at this company called the Peanut Patch, Macy. And you can go into any convenience store around the around the country and buy boiled peanuts. Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 1:06:40

Walmart, all kinds of stuff.

SPEAKER_03 1:06:42

I love them. Yeah, I love them. Yeah, they're they're a great, great snack. So um who who won this week, uh Jackson?

SPEAKER_00 1:06:49

This week's uh user review winner is Ind Chandler. He said, awesome podcast. I'm 62 years old, and I still learn something new from each and every podcast episode. And this was on the Cahaba Lily episode.

SPEAKER_06 1:07:03

Oh, cool. That was a fun one. That was a neat one.

SPEAKER_03 1:07:06

It was 62 is a young age.

SPEAKER_06 1:07:08

It is a young age, Bob. Getting younger by the day.

SPEAKER_03 1:07:12

So uh he's gonna get we've got uh Marstupio send us some some gifts to give away, some little packs in bottom land. Toxia, you would love these things, they are so well made. But we'll we'll be we'll get great brand. Great brand, great people. They are great, great camo. That's right. Yep. All right, Dudley. All right, a little nervous about this one, but all right, all right, Macy.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:31

Um here's the question: name the newly discovered invasive insect that is a threat to both native grasses and the common cattle grasses in Texas. Mealy worm. Nailed it. All right, yeah, that is the pasture mealybug. So he of course he drew her. Heliococcus summer villii.

SPEAKER_07 1:07:57

There you go, being all scientific, high-tech redneck on us.

SPEAKER_02 1:08:01

So this bug is coming in and devastating grasslands.

SPEAKER_07 1:08:05

Wow.

SPEAKER_02 1:08:06

And so not only do we have the screw worm as a problem, but what the cattle and wildlife are eating and stuff, it's killing.

SPEAKER_07 1:08:15

I swear it's not to be Bobby Cole novel conspiracy theories here, but it's almost like biological weapons are being launched against us sometimes. I had someone the other day studying the whole Alpha Gal thing. Oh, it's happening now too, and they're like, down deep in it.

SPEAKER_06 1:08:31

I mean, you you couldn't have designed a much better one, you know. No, we were talking about it this morning in our staff meeting, actually.

SPEAKER_07 1:08:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:08:38

Anyway, you know, you throw in chronic you throw in chronic waste disease. Yeah, you know, a a landowner and a wildlife manager, yeah. I tell you what, it's just you know, only thing we haven't gotten yet was the plague of locusts.

SPEAKER_07 1:08:52

You know, it's just like that's the only thing that's going to be. I didn't hear that.

SPEAKER_02 1:09:00

Speaking of, I told you back in the 90s, I I uh did some canoeing on the Big Ben for a couple weeks, and when we were on the way there, we came across a plague of locusts. Um, and I'm sure that happens every once in a while, but there were there were uh in this town, we were at a gas station, there was like this grasshopper thing, like there was one like every six inches on the ground and just all over everything. So yeah, yeah, right.

SPEAKER_04 1:09:29

So sometimes it'll be uh sometimes it'll be crickets. So so grasshoppers, crickets, and sometimes butterflies. And thankfully it's a very, very small geographical area, like maybe a county or half of a county. Um, but yeah, sometimes the the crickets are so thick you can't walk on the ground without crunching a cricket. It's amazing.

SPEAKER_07 1:09:49

Wow. Hello, turkeys there, too. Yeah, brim time. Just go brim fishing.

SPEAKER_03 1:09:54

Hopper nose bluegill. Come on. Macy, let me ask you a question. And uh I'm not being political at all. I I'm just curious because and I don't know.

SPEAKER_07 1:10:02

Well then don't be.

SPEAKER_03 1:10:03

Well, so can you explain the the wall that they've built in Texas along the river? Can the wildlife is it a does it how do the wildlife interact with that wall? I'm just trying to understand that.

SPEAKER_04 1:10:17

No, that that's a great question. And so when when you when you're talking about or thinking about the wall, it's not the great wall of China. And sometimes media might want to make you think that's what it is. It's not that. It's a it's a vertical flat metal wall. It's about, I think, 16 foot tall. So you can see through it, sunlight goes through it, rain, air goes through it, but it's it's built in a manner to where a human can't squeeze through it. So you and I can't turn sideways and walk through it. But it but you can see through it. And it's buried underground, I think about four feet deep in concrete. Now they only place this particular physical barrier wall where construction makes sense. So think about it. If you're gonna build any kind of fence, you're gonna want to be able to drive there and you know get rid of the vegetation and dig a trench and pour concrete and all that, right? So it's gonna be somewhat level, somewhat accessible by vehicle, right? So so if you can build a fence, you can build this wall. But a lot of Texas and a lot of, particularly Rio Grande, you mentioned Big Ben, you can't even get there on two feet. So in those areas, they're not building a wall. They're they're putting up satellite technology, they're putting up solar-powered uh thermal cameras, they're using technology as a visual, as a as a invisible wall, if you would, so that those areas can be monitored remotely. Maybe in Houston, Texas, you can run thermal drones and thermal cameras from Houston, Texas to the Rio Grande, you know, for monitoring purposes. And then on a radio or a cell phone, you can dispatch border patrol on the ground via solar-powered cameras, and that's what they're using. So this border wall, this physical metal behemoth wall that we're talking about, it starts and stops. It's not a continuous wall. It may go for let's say a half a mile, four miles, ten miles, uninterrupted, and then it just stops. So humans, animals can walk around the edge of it. Um, now again, there may be some other you know, computer or or thermal camera monitoring it, but the idea of a Chinese wall or Berlin type wall structure, it's not from north to south. That doesn't exist. But it does exist in places that make sense for such a physical, physical uh constraint, if that makes sense. Sure.

SPEAKER_03 1:12:56

I just wondered how the wildlife interacted with that. It sounds like small wildlife could get through it.

SPEAKER_04 1:13:01

Small wildlife go right through it, like say birds, rabbits, coyotes. We we have documented through some of our work and other work, mountain lines can go through it. Um, you know, so so again, something small can get through it, but it's designed specifically for a grown adult not to be able to squeeze through it. So even a small child can get through it, but an adult can't. Um and it's I believe it's 16 foot tall, it's smooth metal. So the idea is, like I say, you you can't climb it. There's nothing to grab a hold of, there's no footing to put your foot in it, and it's 16 foot tall, so you're not going to be packing a 16-foot ladder through the brush to get over it. So it I think it's pretty much human-proof, but it's you know cattle can't get through it, but but a lot of wildlife, sunlight, water, wind can get can penetrate through it.

SPEAKER_02 1:13:52

Might be a good pinch point to put a stand there. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:13:57

Exactly. And it is, it is. So the tick riders, you know, the animal health people that are worried about maverick cattle, and and of course wildlife, because you know, wildlife, they don't respect, you know, borders. That's just a creek. That Rio Grande River is just a creek. They cross that water every day. Uh, most of that that Rio Grande guys, you can walk across it. It's it's waist deep at best. You know, there's very few places you have to actually swim. So wildlife, you know, nil guy, whitetailed deer, mule deer, desert bighorn sheep, awdad, feral hogs, they swim, they walk that river every single day. They don't give a flip that that's a U.S. Mexican border.

SPEAKER_03 1:14:35

All right, Macy. We are cheering for you guys. Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 1:14:38

Good grace. Thank you guys. I appreciate it.

SPEAKER_03 1:14:41

Don't let them.

SPEAKER_04 1:14:42

We we need cheers, we need prayers. And again, I'm I'm I'm hoping this Novo fly works out, and I'm really praying immediately, the short term, for this emergency short term prescribed medicated wildlife. Yes.

SPEAKER_07 1:14:55

Yes.

SPEAKER_04 1:14:56

Guys, I believe that's a game changer because there's a lot of ranches out there that do know their densities, that do know their sex ratios, that do know their average body weights. And so I believe on a on a fairly large-scale volume of ranches, I think we can help slow this thing down. We just need the tools in our toolbox because right now, as we've talked about, a landowner, a wildlife manager, a deer hunter, a lease hunter, your toolbox is pretty empty. And that's that's not where we need to be. We're America, we're Texans. Well, that's not where we need to be. We need to have a toolbox overflowing with tools. That's right. Well said.

SPEAKER_07 1:15:36

Very well said. All right, yeah. Thank you. Thank you for your service. It's like I mean, seriously. Thank you, guys. A hero to people like us who just get up and you know go to the hunting club and go hunting and all. You you're out there fighting the battles for us. So thank you so much.

SPEAKER_04 1:15:49

Thank you, guys. I appreciate that. Yeah. Yep.

SPEAKER_03 1:15:51

Make sure we'll stay in touch. We appreciate it. Well, I guess that's it. Uh, why don't you say goodbye, Dudley? Goodbye, Dudley. Get us out of here, Jackson.

SPEAKER_01 1:16:00

Thanks for tuning in to this week's episode of the Game Keeper Podcast. And be sure to tune in again. Subscribe to Game Keeper Farming for Wildlife Magazine, and don't miss the Mafia Properties Festival of Dirt podcast with my good buddy, Ronnie Coaster.